


Running From Lions

by steelballrun



Category: Gintama
Genre: Benizakura Arc, Other, one-sided romantic thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 01:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1964520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelballrun/pseuds/steelballrun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gintoki reflects on his old comrades and how they've changed. (not overly romantic, a short collection of Gin's thoughts on Takasugi and Katsura.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running From Lions

The wind blows past Gintoki, ruffling his hair and cooling his sweaty body. He looks up at Katsura-- still elegant and graceful as ever even without his annoyingly beautiful hair. The sunlight filters through his ridiculous parachute, shining on his shorn locks and handsome face. Gintoki grips his legs tighter. This moment wouldn’t last forever, after all.  
  
He thinks back to the promise he and Katsura had just made to Takasugi, and wonders what had been swirling around in his head for him to want to bother with a man so dangerous, a man who no longer had anything to do with him.  
  
Better yet, what had been going on inside that empty head of Katsura’s? Despite the circumstances, his eyes had been so unusually clear. Gintoki chalks it up to the sudden hair loss, the fact that there was no longer anything on his head to filter out intelligent thought.  
  
_Zura_ , he’d said to his friend. _If you ever change, I’ll cut you down without a second thought ___. And Katsura had promised the same. Gintoki intends to keep his promise- he doesn't want to have to deal with someone who's only a shadow of the one he loves now.  
  
“I wouldn’t have ever thought Takasugi was doing this just for Shouyo-sensei’s sake,” Katsura murmurs.  
  
There’s a rustling noise, and Gintoki looks up to see that he’s pulled out a familiar notebook. The spine has a child’s handwriting on it. _Katsura Koutaro ___. “And I wouldn’t have thought that he still carried this around as well…”  
  
Gintoki looks back down at the open ocean so he doesn’t have to see the sadness in the other man’s eyes, a vortex leading straight to the sorrow in his heart. Katsura’s always worn his heart on his sleeve.  
  
“We all started in the same place,” says Katsura with a sigh, “and yet the distance between us is more vast than I ever could have imagined.”  
  
_That man hasn’t moved at all_ , Gintoki thinks to himself. _That’s why the distance is so vast_. In his heart, black as it is, we are still children looking at our sensei’s head on the ground. Even though he’s changed so much… somehow, he’s not changed at all __.  
  
“Gintoki?” asks Katsura hesitantly.  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“Do you remember this book?”  
  
“Yeah,” the white-haired man replies, with a sigh. He gazes out at the horizon, white clouds on blue sky on blue ocean. Destruction rains from the flaming ships behind them. "I do.  
  
“I spilled ramen on it, so I threw it away.”


End file.
